Accessibility

Family history belongs to everyone, and a lot of the people most invested in it are older, or have low vision, limited dexterity, or use assistive technology. A genealogy platform that only works for a fast-moving mouse user has failed at its own purpose.

We aim to meet WCAG 2.2 Level AA. We are not claiming full conformance today — the gaps we know about are listed below rather than left for you to discover.

Motion

Every animation on the platform respects your operating system's reduce motion setting. Turn it on and page transitions, the pulsing loaders and the animated tree all become still. Nothing is conveyed by motion alone.

Colour and contrast

Body text and interface controls are designed to meet the 4.5:1 contrast minimum. Status is never carried by colour by itself — a Pending, Confirmed or Disputed relationship always carries a text label as well as a colour. Several of the themes in the theme switcher offer higher contrast than the default if you prefer one.

Keyboard

The site can be navigated by keyboard. Focus is visible on every interactive element, dialogs trap focus while open and return it when closed, and a skip link at the top of each page jumps straight to the main content.

Screen readers

Pages use real headings in order, landmark regions, and labelled form fields with errors announced on the field they belong to. Icons that carry meaning have text alternatives; decorative ones are hidden from assistive technology.

Touch and pointer

Interactive controls are sized to at least 44 by 44 pixels on touch devices, so the platform is usable on a phone without precise aim.

Zoom and reflow

Layouts reflow to 320px width and support 200% text zoom without loss of content. Wide content such as tables and the tree canvas scrolls within its own region rather than forcing the whole page sideways.

Listing these is more useful to you than a blanket claim of conformance would be. Each is on our backlog.

• The interactive tree canvas. Pan-and-zoom exploration of a large tree is difficult to operate by keyboard alone and is not fully described to screen readers. The relatives list view is a complete, accessible alternative to the same data, and we are working to bring the canvas itself up to standard.
• Uploaded media lacks alternative text. We do not yet require or prompt for a description when a photograph is uploaded, so many images carry no meaningful alternative text. We are adding a description field to the upload flow.
• Some data tables in the admin area are not fully marked up for screen reader navigation by row and column.
• Session timeout does not yet give a warning before it expires, which can be a problem if you need more time to complete a form.
• A small number of colour combinations in the less commonly used themes fall below the contrast target. The default theme is unaffected.

• NVDA and JAWS with Chrome and Firefox on Windows
• VoiceOver with Safari on macOS and iOS
• TalkBack with Chrome on Android
• Keyboard-only navigation on every supported browser
• Browser zoom to 200% and operating-system text scaling
• Automated checks in our build, plus manual review of new interfaces

If any part of World Ancestry is difficult or impossible for you to use, we want to hear about it — this is the fastest route to getting it fixed, and reports from people who hit the problem in real use are worth more to us than any audit.

Email accessibility@worldancestry.net or use the contact form. Tell us the page, what you were trying to do, and the assistive technology and browser you were using if you know them.

We acknowledge accessibility reports within 5 working days and will tell you what we plan to do and roughly when. If something blocks you from a task you need to complete now, say so and we will help you complete it another way while we fix the underlying problem.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you can escalate to the equality or accessibility regulator in your country. In the UK that is the Equality Advisory and Support Service; in the EU, the national enforcement body designated under the European Accessibility Act; in the US, the Department of Justice under the ADA.